The Metaverse Journal - Virtual World News

Australian gamers can expect to have an R18+ classification for games by January 1, 2013, according to the federal government.Federal Minister for Home Affairs Jason Clare today introduced the R18+ bill in parliament and announced the federal government expects the R18+ for games legislation to officially come into effect next year.Last month, Clare announced his intention to stick to former Federal Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O’Connor’s previous plans in introducing the R18+ legislation in the February 2012 session of parliament.Clare has stayed true to this plan, officially introducing the R18+ for games bill in parliament today.
Via au.gamespot.com

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Credit card thieves have figured out a way to steal money from OpenSim grid owners.

They take the credit cards, and use them to purchase virtual currency from the grids. Then they turn around and redeem the currency for cash before the card holder notices the theft and complains. The credit card company reverses the transaction and now the grid is out the full amount — plus the time spent dealing with the issue.

Any grid that issues its own virtual currency and allows it to be redeemed is potentially vulnerable. Second Life, for example, to combat against this kind of fraud, has a security API in place for third-parties that trade its currency, such as outside currency exchanges, as well as internal controls.
Via www.hypergridbusiness.com

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While the nature of the firm has long been established as the dominant form of organizing for value creation, emergent forms of organizing such as the private-collective community model have recently gained attention from researchers and practitioners. Little is known about how such communities, where private goods from stakeholders are shared and freely distributed among a public collective, sustain themselves. The purpose of this research is to examine how the resources, stakeholders, and overarching network structure in which these are embedded influence the sustainability of the community. Using semi-structured interviews, archival data, and social network analysis, we explore these items in detail and provide initial findings from an ongoing research study of the OpenSim community. We conclude with future directions, expected contributions, and the limitations of this line of research.
Via nordicworlds.net

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Contact lenses which focus 3D screens directly into people’s eyeballs could be on sale as early as 2014, says U.S. company Innovega.
The tiny ‘screens’ sit directly on users’ eyeballs and work with a pair of lightweight glasses with a built-in translucent screen.
The experience is equivalent to a 240-inch television viewed at a distance of 10 feet, says Innovega’s CEO Steve Willey.

Via www.dailymail.co.uk

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Creating the pattern for a new dress design can be fiddly, so Amy Wibowo at the University of Tokyo, Japan, is using augmented reality to make it simpler.
Six ceiling-mounted cameras are trained on the dummy and on two tools held by the designer, one for creating surfaces and other for cutting them. The tools and the dummy both have markers, so the cameras can work out where in 3D space they are relative to each other. As the designer draws and works on and around the physical mannequin, this shows up on a virtual onscreen version.”The idea is to make it easy for people to design clothes,” says Wibowo. Usually you have to choose set patterns, which is limiting, she says. What’s particularly difficult is working out what 2D shapes are needed in order to achieve a particular 3D design.Her approach, called DressUp, gets round this by using “flattening” algorithms to work out the best shaped patterns to achieve the 3D design. Then you just print it out and cut around the patterns in the material of your choice, she says.
Via www.newscientist.com

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If I were to make a list of the top three things that are responsible for Second Life being as great as it is – and that is exactly what I’m doing today – it would read equally well as a list of things that hold Second Life back.
Via dwellonit.taterunino.net

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The clock is chiming, and kids (and the young at heart) everywhere are asking for just a little more time with LEGO Universe. Unfortunately the struggling MMO has gotten no reprieve from the imaginary video game governor, and its servers will go offline tonight at midnight EST.
Via massively.joystiq.com

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